Mini PB Banana & Chocolate Pancakes

So this is very exciting... I made my own recipe! My first recipe!

Mini PB banana & chocolate pancakes, for one.

YUM. (Can you even tell that this photo is of the failed ones?)

Of course, it being my first self-conceived recipe means that along the way, there were some fails. I first attempted these mini pancakes for breakfast, only to find that the batter was too liquid-y. It only follows that after the whole vegan recipe fiasco, there'd be more mistakes on the way.

(By the way, I've decided to self-impose a moratorium on vegan recipes, since I clearly don't know the first thing about veganism. You try to throw them a bone, and... they point out that animal bones are used in lots of products and shame on you. Eh. ☺ But on a more serious note, I just don't know enough about vegan diets to make food that caters to vegans, so I'm just going to leave that for the people who have actually done their research. Simple enough.)

These pancakes are not vegan, but they are fairly healthy! And because they're mini, you can eat a lot of them without any remorse whatsoever. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As I mentioned, the first batch (see above) wasn't exactly perfect. The first couple of pancakes turned out more like deformed crepes, and the rest of them tasted a bit doughy, because I tried to make up for putting in too much milk by dumpling in random amounts of flour. Yeah, this isn't exactly scientific method right here.

Still, top them with (local) pear butter and maple syrup, and they taste pretty good!

However, being the perfectionist that I am, by lunchtime I felt that I had to try again. This time, I eliminated the syrup from the batter, since I would already be using it as a topping, and added much less milk than before.

TADA! Perfect! (Or pretty damn close.)

Maybe I should subtitle this post "Lessons in Perseverance."

Anyway, here's the recipe!

INGREDIENTS
3 1/2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp cocoa powder *
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 Tbsp peanut butter
1 Tbsp milk
1/2 banana **

*I used dark chocolate cocoa powder
**use rest for toppings

Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder) in a bowl.

In another bowl, mix together the egg and peanut butter. (TIP: If you want to minimize cleanup, you can use the same bowl you used for the dry ingredients: just transfer your dry ingredients into a cup or measuring cup.)

Add in your dry ingredients to the egg/peanut butter mixture, and mix well.

Add in the milk (I used fat-free milk), and mix.

Slice the banana, and then add half (or 1/4, if you'd like the peanut butter taste to predominate) of the banana slices into your batter, mashing the banana slices into the rest of the ingredients. You can mash however much you want depending on how chunky you'd like the bananas to be.

Heat up a nonstick pan. (If you don't have a nonstick pan, you can grease up a normal frying pan or use cooking spray. Griddles also should work just fine!) I heated up my pan on high for a couple of minutes and then switched it to medium heat. I don't know why really, but it works for me.

Once the pan is hot enough, spoon in a small amount of batter. I used about a tablespoon for each mini pancake.

Cook each side for about 1/2 a minute. (Use your judgement and a fork. You want the pancake to turn somewhat golden brown.)

Let cool, and serve with whatever toppings you'd like!

Enjoy!

(Vegan) (Dark) Chocolate Mug Cake

[edit] I received some comments that some of the products I used for this are in fact not vegan. The base recipe allows for a vegan version, but as I am not vegan, I am not as strict about which products I use. It was definitely an education on what goes into some products, so this is a disclaimer that while this recipe can be made to fit a vegan diet, it might not necessarily end up being vegan depending on which products/brands you use. [/edit]

In the past couple of weeks (read: finals weeks), I have been on a mission. A very important mission.

Make all the mug cakes.

All of them.

I believe that at this point, I have tested out 5 different recipes. They have all been successful except for the failed incident of the banana mug bread - looked good, tasted like rubber - of which I shall never mention again. (Poor wasted banana. You had a good inanimate life... while it lasted.)

The only thing that might possibly bar you from the most joyfully easy cake experience of your life is the amount of calories. Not that I really understand how to calculate calories from a bunch of ingredients. Not that I would ever want to. I refer you to the [self-proclaimed troll-] queen herself:


(I love her so so much sometimes.)

But on all the food blogs that I have frequented in order to find the mug cake recipes, some (I'm sure well-meaning, but as you know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions... and a certain narrator named Dante who is prone to fainting spells) commenter has pointed out just how many hundreds of calories you're going to intake and how it will make you cry big fat tears of fat. (Or that's just how it comes across to me. I hate the 'thinspiration' movement, not only for its pretentious name.) I like healthy, just not judgmental tyranny.

Now, I don't know how many calories this one has (please don't burst my bubble), but it has a lot less oil than the other ones I have tried thus far, without sacrificing taste! In fact, I think this vegan chocolate mug cake had the best consistency out of all them, although that might have been because I am now a practiced mug cake-maker.

I got the original recipe here from a blog called Aromatic Cooking. The first time I made it, I microwaved it for a bit too long, because the previous mug cakes were a bit too moist originally. But the specs provided on the original recipe for this one are spot on!

I'm not vegan, so I did add a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream the first time I had this, but the good thing is that if you are vegan, this is at its basis a vegan recipe! Also, cooking with eggs can be messy and/or just annoying, especially since salmonella really scares some people, so this recipe is quite simple and stress-free.

In addition, this recipe takes about 5 minutes to make, or perhaps even less time if you don't get distracted by an episode of Elementary like I did.

I will repost the ingredients and instructions here with my slight modifications, but definitely do check out the original recipe page!

INGREDIENTS *

3 Tbsp AP flour
2 Tbsp sugar **
1 1/2 Tbsp dark chocolate cocoa powder ***
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp orange juice
2 1/2 tsp oil

*be sure to check your products' ingredients if you wish to make this vegan! The cocoa mix and baking powder I used are not vegan, so substitute accordingly.
**original recipe calls for an extra tsp but I found it was fine without
***original calls for unsweetened cocoa powder. If you used sweetened cocoa powder, use less than 2 Tbsp sugar

Add all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda) into a mug and mix. (Say hello to my awesome heat-changing TARDIS mug!)

Add in the orange juice and oil, and mix well. Make sure no clumps remain at the bottom or on the sides of the mug. (TIP: If you're lazy like me, you can use the other end of the spoon to stir, leaving the other side clean for eventual eating of the mug cake. You're welcome.)

Microwave for 1 minute 45 seconds. (You can go up to 2 minutes, but check at 1:45 to see if it's the consistency you want before adding on time, otherwise it could get quite dry.) Let cool.

(See? The TARDIS materialized into space on the other side of the mug! It travels in space and time! In a small white box that does magic wibbly-wobbly heat wave things when you set a time!)

If you want to transplant the cake from the mug to a plate, let it cool for at least a few minutes, otherwise it might crumble apart.

Feel free to decorate! Fruit, yogurt, powdered sugar, etc. I used clementines this time to complement the orange juice, but I used bananas (see above) last time and it was very delicious.

Noms.

Later that night, I got to see my favorite band of all time, The National. I got second row tickets! The music was absolutely phenomenal: they really are such great musicians, and Matt Berninger is a god.

I also got one of the band's setlists! It now resides next to one of my Audrey Hepburn posters in my bedroom.

I can now die happy.

Hope you have fun making your mug cake, and as always, comments are much appreciated! Let me know what you think of it. I will probably be testing out more mug cake recipes in future posts too.

Allons-y!